November 02, 2007

Fools Rush in to Social Media Campaigns

Meet
Linda, a PR account director for several large companies. One day, one
of her clients called her in for a meeting and said his company wanted
to delve into social media. "You know," said the client, "we want some
of that Web 2.0 stuff. How fast can you launch a campaign?"

Poor
Linda had never published her own blog and couldn't even tell the
difference between a wiki and forum. But she had read a recent white
paper from the Council of PR Firms that said in the next five years, "social media must become part of the way
public relations practitioners do business or they will become
obsolete." (From "Relating to the Public: The Evolving Role of Public
Relations in the Age of Social Media," available as a PDF here.) So fearing obsolescence, Linda and her team jumped in to this brave new world. Their intent was to "join the conversation" but instead it quickly turned into a street brawl.

"At best, they wasted a lot of money on ill-conceived campaigns
involving blogs, video-sharing sites like YouTube, social networks like
MySpace and other new media where users (horrors!) can actually create
content.

"At worst, their futile attempts at old-style message control
(masquerading as new media) did permanent damage to their brands in the
very markets that will determine their future fortunes."

If your client expects you to have a program in place immediately —
before you have time to digest all this course work — well, it might be
time to panic if you haven’t been a long-time student of social media
in your spare time. And if you’re just beginning to dip your toes into
all this Web 2.0 goodness, would you be comfortable putting your
client’s reputation on the line while you learn on the job?

My advice: As tempting as new channels like blogs and
massively-multiplayer environments may be for marketing, you should
make sure you understand the needs, opinions and language of the
audience before throwing your messages at them. If you don’t know this
new world as well as your Rolodex of reporters, it’s best to hire a
consultant.

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